My first stab at a top 10 horror list. There are tons of classics I haven't yet seen (including some pretty embarrassing omissions), but these are my current favorites:

Suspira - My favorite soundtrack of any horror movie, plus incredibly vivid use of color and some shocking set-pieces. It has it'sincoherent bits and the terrible dub distracts, but still absolutely a must-see.

The Evil Dead series - I can't leave any of these out.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (1974) - How Tobe Hooper made a horror movie this perfect and then lost it completely (I'm giving Spielberg most of the credit for Poltergeist) is shocking to me. Funny, nasty, uncomfortable movie that puts most other slasher movies to shame.

Jacob's Ladder - The closest we'll ever get to a good Silent Hill movie.

Wicker Man, The (1973) - Of all the movies Christopher Lee acted in, this was his favorite.

Eraserhead - Incredibly creepy and surreal first movie by David Lynch, filmed in black & white.

Audition - If you want to see this movie, go in cold - read nothing about it.

Martin - This is actually my favorite George Romero movie. More of a character study than a horror movie - an ordinary-looking teenager who claims to be a 100+ year-old vampire (in lieu of fangs, he uses chloroform and syringes) moves toPittsburgh and becomes a quasi-celebrity by anonymously calling a late-night radio station and talking about his existence.

My favorite bad horror movie? Blood Freak. Good-hearted, motorcycle-riding Vietnam vet gets addicted to the Devil's weed, turns into a turkey monster (complete with paper-mache head) that needs blood to survive and is saved by the power of Jesus.

velcrozombie wrote: Jacob's Ladder - The closest we'll ever get to a good Silent Hill movie.

Jacob's Ladder predates Silent Hill, so maybe reverse that. Great to hear someone mention it. I saw it in the theater having no clue what I was in for. Just one of those, hey, lets go to movies tonight things. Really stuck with me. Left me thinkimg about An Incident at Owl Creek Bridge from about 1865.

Not sure about favorite, but there is a Tod Browning movie from the early 1930s that leaps to mind. Its hard to imagine something from that long ago time capable of being scary or disturbing or memorable, but if ever see a little movie called Freaks, don't let the production date turn you away. Its got a 90% or more on Rotten Tomatos, and its pre Hays code. The movie we see today is not the original, which was heavily cut down from 90 to like 60 minutes after test screenings.

In the video games as art thread, one idea is that fancy computer graphics are impressive, but make you aware of just watching a film. Totally the opposite in Freaks. Its authentic in enough ways where you are hooked on the fanciful parts.

I watched Sleepaway Camp (1983) on Friday and I thought it was a lot of fun. I had never heard of the series before but it's basically a slasher film taking place at a adolescent campground. I think the best part of the movie is the twist ending and the creative death scenes. It was definitely a fun film.

As for the Evil Dead series- I like the first two films a lot, not a big fan of Army of Darkness. I agree that the series became less serious as the sequels came out. I rank the first one up there with Texas Chainsaw on creep out factor. I watched it, for the first time, about 5 or so years ago and I was definitely disturbed after watching it.

I'll see if i can come up with a top list of horror films I like... I don't know if I could do a top 10. Maybe a top 20.

Yeah, I knew that Jacob's Ladder came first. Interestingly, it was written by the same screenwriter who had a massive hit that same year with Ghost and directed by Adrian Lyne, notable for previous horror classics Flashdance and 9 1/2 Weeks.

Freaks is absolutely on my to-watch list. That it's an older movie doesn't bother me - I have similarly-dated horror movies like Island of Lost Souls and The Black Cat on my list, and I loved M, Dracula and The Bride of Frankenstein.

@rev

I have The Evil Dead Handbook, and the chapter on Army of Darkness seems to hint at a lot of forced cuts and studio interference (including the push to get it a PG-13 rating). I also remember that they regretted how much of a jerk they made Ash in the movie. I think it's inferior to the first two, but I've watched it several times and have never failed to enjoy myself. I have heard that the Director's Cut is a significant improvement but haven't yet seen it myself. The original was my favorite for a long time and I still marvel at what they did with such a lack of resources and experience, but I now feel that Evil Dead 2 is the best of the lot.

I looked through my horror movies to see what if I could make some kind of list for my top horror movies. This is what I came up with:25.Dawn of the Dead (original)24.Psycho (original)23.Rosemary's Baby (original)22.The Babadook21.Audition20.American Mary19.The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)18.The Cabin in the Woods17.The Conjuring16.Starry Eyes15.Hard Candy14.28 Days Later13.You're Next12.The Exorcist11.Wolf Creek10.American Psycho9.Candyman8.Ginger Snaps7.A Tale of Two Sisters6.The Descent5.The Stepford Wives (original)4.It Follows3.The Blair Witch Project2.The Birds1.Nightmare on Elm Street (original)

I have quite a few horror movies from the last 15 years on my list. Obviously, this is my own preference. It Follows is fairly new so I'm unsure if that is recency bias or I was really that impressed with the movie but I know it left a lasting impression on me.

I used to watch a lot of horror films, though now i'm more into action movies. But when I do occasionally watch horror, it's mostly mostly creature and slasher horror films, particularly those Sci-Fi channel original movies, which I quite enjoy despite all the hatred leveled at them.

I despise remakes of foreign films like The Ring, Pulse, Shutter, The Eye, etc, and I also hate PG-13 remakes of R-rated horror films like The Stepfather and Prom Night, fortunately those trends seem to have died. Unfortunately there's still the trend of found-footage films, most of which are awful(I find Blair Witch to be massively overrated, didn't scare me one bit, it just made me incredibly nauseous and gave me a headache with that irritating "shaky-cam" directing style that I don't like), I am so sick of the Paranormal Activity series and wish it would die.

No horror film(or TV show/video game for that matter) has ever truly scared me, I truly don't get why people were so terrified of crap like Conjuring and INsidious, I found them both laughably bad.

My partner hates Blair Witch Project too (quite a few people do, definitely a movie that causes mixed opinions). I honestly don't find most horror movies scary anymore. Perhaps that was the appeal at first but it has definitely changed over time. While I don't find horror movies scary I can find them a bit disturbing at times. I think that is why I like the Blair Witch Project so much. Unlike a lot of mocumentaries nowadays, the BWP really felt like I was watching an old home movie. I think that is where the brilliance of the movie lies. It feels more real than most other movies I've seen simply because I can remember watching home movies as a kid. The camera work and everything is spot on to how those movies used to be. I think watching something that I knew was real, is a lot more terrifying than watching something that you know someone just made up, and the movie (at least to me) is very convincing. It makes me feel like I was digging through a pile of home movies and happened upon something I should have never watched.

Well I never watched home movies as a kid, so Blair Witch just looked ridiculously fake to me(and it wasn't even original like a lot of people say it is, it ripped off the superior films The Last Broadcast and Cannibal Holocaust), i'm one of the few that actually liked the sequel better, if only because it actually tried to go in a different direction unlike the PA sequels, which are pretty much the same thing every time except with different actors.

Vexer6 wrote:Well I never watched home movies as a kid, so Blair Witch just looked ridiculously fake to me(and it wasn't even original like a lot of people say it is, it ripped off the superior films The Last Broadcast and Cannibal Holocaust), i'm one of the few that actually liked the sequel better, if only because it actually tried to go in a different direction unlike the PA sequels

Thus, not everyone likes the movie...

I do want to check out the other two films though. I'll see if I can find a copy of those so I can at least compare them.

which are pretty much the same thing every time except with different actors.

Well to be fair, that one chic has been in like all 5 PA movies... lol That series really needs to be over.